Chillin'Competition

Over the past few months, the European Institutions have been working on a major legislative initiative that seeks to leverage DG COMP’s experience to create a new regulatory instrument, close an enforcement gap and address some of the greatest distortions to competition and the internal market.

We are talking about a bold, but well-thought out and balanced initiative that pursues true public interest goals. Some aspects still need to be ironed out, but the proposal is sound. Its success, however, will be determined by its practical implementation in the face of political pressures, potential legal challenges and EU relationships with third countries. This is a legislative initiative that touches on issues that we have discussed through the years, and we will be following it closely.

We are, of course, talking about the European Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on Foreign Subsidies distorting the internal market, which has arguably not received the attention it deserves.

The opposite is true of the Digital Markets Act, which has attracted lots of attention from the press, politicians, lobbysts and commentators. Last Thursday, an almost-final version of the final DMA text was leaked. This text is now circulating widely in Brussels circles. We figured you would be interested. It is available here: